The Runaway

Jo pushed open the door. ‘Come on,’ she said, tapping at an imaginary watch on her wrist.

‘Martin Blink wants to see us,’ I said.

‘Ace. Let’s go.’

‘He needs reminding that this is a female detective agency, isn’t it?’ Aunt Edie looked to Jo for support.

I’ve given up trying to explain the difference between a detective agency and a missing persons’ bureau to Aunt Edie. At times I think she’s deliberately trying to misunderstand.

‘That’s right, Edie,’ said Jo. ‘No persons with dangly bits will ever work in this office.’ She made a diagonal cross over her left breast as she spoke. ‘You know what it’s like. Let one in and they’ll all want to start waving them around.’

I frowned at Jo. I put my hands on my hips and tried to adopt a managerial tone. ‘Did you make him an appointment?’

‘In the diary.’ Aunt Edie sniffed.

‘When?’

‘Half past four.’

‘Today?’ I glanced at the clock.

‘I squeezed him in.’ She switched on her computer screen and took a seat at the desk. ‘Not that he was grateful.’

*

It’s only a ten-minute walk from our offices to the uni, through Hyde Park, the decompression chamber between city centre and student-ghetto. Jo found the Earth and Environment building on a map of the campus while I checked the form. Nikki had given us the name of Matt’s tutor – Professor Kenrick, or Kennick.

We found the name – Kendrick – on a tutorial list; office was on the eleventh floor. It was already two o’clock in the afternoon and it appeared that the university had done its main business of the day and was winding down to home time. We passed several empty seminar rooms as we marched along the corridors, reading the names on the doors. We climbed another flight of stairs and encountered an identical set of corridors before we found the room we were looking for. I glanced through the window. A woman with short hair, hunched over a desk.

Jo knocked and pushed open the door. ‘Professor Kendrick?’

The professor glanced up from her desk, and the familiar feeling of being a schoolgirl in the firing line washed through me. I braced myself for her displeasure at being disturbed. She looked us both up and down.

‘You’ve found me.’ She placed her pen down on the pile of paper in front of her and pushed her glasses up into her short, spiky hair. ‘And provided a welcome distraction. What can I do you for?’

‘We’re looking for Matt Williams.’

The professor inclined her head. She was younger than I first thought. Perhaps not even forty. ‘Popular chap.’

‘We’re private investigators,’ said Jo. ‘We need to talk to him.’

The academic stood up and I realized how tall she was. Impossible to miss, she must have been over six foot. In the small room she took on almost comedy proportions.

‘I do beg your pardon. I thought you were students.’ She brushed down her rumpled suit trousers with one hand as she held the other out to shake Jo’s. ‘Private investigators. Fascinating.’

‘Thanks,’ said Jo.

‘How long have you been in this line of business?’

‘Long enough,’ said Jo.

‘Do come in, and close the door. If I move this pile of papers,’ she grabbed a stack from a chair in the corner of her shoebox-sized room, ‘you’ll even be able to have a seat.’

Jo didn’t move and as I was stood behind her, I didn’t either. The professor didn’t appear to notice as she continued to rearrange the boxes and piles of paper. ‘So, Matthew. Matty, I believe the girls call him. Obviously, I’m too old to be swayed by his charms, but not so old I can’t appreciate why he causes such a stir.’ She turned to smile at us both.

‘Do you know where we might find him?’ asked Jo.

‘Afraid not. Haven’t seen him, not recently.’

‘It’s rather urgent,’ said Jo.

She finally cleared both chairs and crossed to the doorframe. Jo moved aside to let her pass, which put Jo deeply inside the room. I followed, inching past the professor, straining to avoid body contact. After glancing out into the corridor, Professor Kendrick closed the door and returned to perch on the edge of her desk. She folded her hands across her knees. ‘Take a seat.’

Jo sank into one so I took the other. This gave Professor Kendrick an even bigger advantage and she loomed over us. Her white shirt tucked in at the waist, emphasizing her slender frame. ‘Now, what’s this about?’

‘Matt’s missing,’ I said. ‘No one’s seen him since a party on Saturday night.’

‘Then I suggest you talk to admin and see whether they’d be willing to contact his parents. You can leave—’

‘We’ve spoken to his mother,’ Jo lied.

Professor Kendrick raised her voice and continued speaking as if Jo hadn’t interrupted, ‘Your number with me, and if I see him, I would certainly be happy to pass it on. Although I suspect he may be in hiding.’

‘In hiding? Who from?’

She pulled her glasses down to the brim of her nose. ‘From whom?’ She peered at me over the top of the frames. ‘Well, from me I suppose. It’s the deadline for his dissertation. We were supposed to be having a final run over it on Monday afternoon and he didn’t show. Not like him, I must say. I intend to email him.’

I didn’t like the feeling of claustrophobia that had settled over me as soon as Professor Kendrick had closed the door. I like always to know my escape route, and as we were on the eleventh floor, she’d just sealed the only real option.

‘Any concerns about his work up until this point?’ asked Jo.

‘No, he’s a committed student. One of my best. More or less on target, as on target as any of us ever are. But he’s not the first student to go AWOL in the month running up to submission. What did his mother say?’

‘She hasn’t heard from him,’ Jo said, and even I wouldn’t have known she was making this up. ‘That’s why we’re here.’

The professor stuck out her bottom lip. ‘She’s hired a firm of private investigators to find him? As far as I’m aware she hasn’t contacted the university. I’m his supervisor, I’d expect that message to come to me.’

I pretended my interest had been caught by the poster about climate change pinned to the wall.

‘You said he was popular,’ said Jo. ‘What did you mean by that?’

Professor Kendrick’s grey hair fell forward to partially obscure her glasses. She flicked it away with the back of her hand. ‘You’re not the only ones looking for him.’

‘Other people are looking for him?’ I asked.

‘Other women.’

‘How many other women?’

She smiled. ‘I am perhaps exaggerating for dramatic effect. Forgive me, a knee-jerk reaction to reading the musings of my undergrads.’ She nodded at the pile of papers that towered on her desk.

Jo raised a single eyebrow. ‘How many?’

‘Undergrads?’

‘Women looking for Matt.’

‘Two, that I’m aware of.’

‘Of whom you are aware?’ I couldn’t resist.

‘Who?’ asked Jo, shooting me a look that left me in no doubt I should shut up. I went back to the poster.

‘I’m not sure it’s any of my business.’

I’d had enough of the professor, and I worried the oxygen supply was depleting. I’d never survive working in this rabbit hutch. Books lined the walls, giving it an underground bunker-like feel, despite its high-rise situation. ‘People are worried,’ I said.

‘What did they look like? The two women looking for him?’ asked Jo.

‘One had hair like rattlesnakes.’

‘Dreads?’ said Jo. She turned to me. ‘Nikki.’

‘Nikki?’ asked the professor.

‘His girlfriend.’

Professor Kendrick nodded. ‘I’ve seen her hanging about before.’

‘What about the other one?’

‘Well, I’m not one to gossip, and there might not be anything in this.’

‘We’re professional private investigators,’ said Jo. She showed our police-issued identity card. ‘It’s not gossip, it’s helping with our enquiries. Anything you tell us will be treated in the strictest confidence.’

The professor’s brow creased as she took in the badge. ‘The police are involved?’

‘They’ve been informed,’ Jo lied again.

‘And?’

‘They share your view – nothing too ominous in a student disappearing the week before his dissertation is due.’

Professor Kendrick put Jo’s ID down on her desk. ‘There was an incident. A strange incident. Not strange, that’s too strong. Was it yesterday? What’s today?’

‘Wednesday.’

‘Yes, must have been. I wasn’t in Monday, not in the morning. Yesterday morning, Sally from the office came to see me to say she’d caught a young woman taking mail from the pigeonholes. The student pigeonholes. She’d asked said young woman what she was doing, and, she said, the woman had seemed,’ Kendrick paused, searching for the right word, ‘flustered.’

‘Did she stop her taking the mail?’

‘Of course. Not that any of it would be of any interest. Hell, it’s not of interest to me and I wrote most of it. The system is mainly used for hard-copy submissions and leaflets about forthcoming symposiums, information we can’t email. To be honest, hardly anyone uses them anymore. I can’t think why on earth—’

‘It was Matt’s pigeonhole?’

‘She may have thought she’d find a timetable, perhaps.’

‘Where’s Sally now?’

‘Probably her office.’

Jo got up, filling the air space between me and the professor. I wondered again whether there was enough oxygen in the room to support three people. If anyone was going to keel over, like the sacrificial canary in the coal mines, it was going to be me.

‘Can we talk to her?’ Jo asked.

‘Follow me.’

*

Sally was housed in a much bigger office, but she shared it with at least three others.

‘Could we have a word, please,’ said Professor Kendrick, indicating to the middle-aged woman to step outside the room.

‘These two young women are private investigators,’ the professor said to Sally once we were all standing together in the corridor. ‘They want to know more about the woman you saw interfering with the pigeonholes yesterday.’

Sally’s cheeks reddened but I didn’t read anything in to it. The smallest hint of official enquiry can cause some people to colour up.

‘I didn’t recognize her so I asked her what she was doing.’

‘Professor Kendrick says you thought she was flustered.’

‘She struck me that way.’

‘What did she take?’

‘Nothing. I didn’t let her. I asked her what she was doing and she said she was on the wrong floor. She left very quickly.’

‘Can we see the pigeonholes?’

Sally glanced at the professor.

The professor shrugged. ‘Well, they are open mailboxes. We’ve never considered locking them – which goes to show how uncontentious the contents are.’

‘They’re this way,’ Sally said, and we trooped round the corner to where the lifts were.

Outside a room that bore a plaque stating ‘Earth and Earth Sciences Department’, was a grid of shelves – four wide and about a dozen high – each one about the size of a shoebox. Each box had a name tag. Matt Williams was easy to find – the last one on the right-hand side.

‘Are you sure it was Matt’s pigeonhole she was interested in?’

‘Yes,’ said Sally. ‘It was the bottom one.’

‘Can I?’ I crouched so I was level with Matt’s mail.

‘It goes without saying I’m not condoning such behaviour,’ Professor Kendrick said.

I scooped up a handful of paper. The professor was right. Flyers about upcoming conferences, speakers from foreign countries coming to lecture, discount offers on everything from books to nightclubs. I frowned at Jo and handed the pile to her.

‘Are you sure she was taking mail?’ I turned back to Sally. ‘Perhaps she was leaving him a note?’

Sally pulled a face as she considered what I’d just said. ‘I didn’t think of that. But if she was, why didn’t she just say? Instead of running off?’

Jo sifted through the papers. And sure enough, there amongst the bumf I caught a glimpse of A4 lined paper, torn from a book and folded in half. I snatched it and opened it up.

Professor Kendrick peered over my shoulder as I read:

Matt. I’ll be in Old Bar, Thursday two o’clock. Be there. I mean it.

The note wasn’t signed but there was a letter at the end of it. The letter ‘S’. No kiss, not underlined, just an S and a full stop, all in purple biro.

‘When did you see this woman?’ Jo asked Sally.

‘Yesterday, just before lunch.’

I turned to the professor. ‘What’s he like, Matt?’

‘Bright. Well-bred. Popular.’ She pushed her glasses back up her nose. ‘I ought to inform administration.’

I wasn’t keen to get any kind of authority involved, not until we knew what we were dealing with. ‘He might just have had a row with his girlfriend.’

‘And you said his parents are aware?’

‘If there’s another woman on the scene,’ said Jo, waving the piece of paper in the air, ‘he might be in hiding from his girlfriend. Case she breaks his legs.’

‘The eternal curse of good-looking men.’ Professor Kendrick shrugged her shoulders. ‘I imagine.’

‘Of course, the girl you saw might not have left this note. It’s not dated.’ I turned back to Sally. ‘What did she look like?’

Professor Kendrick took off her glasses, polished them with a cloth handkerchief.

‘I don’t know,’ said Sally. ‘She was young. I assumed she was a student.’

‘Glasses? Braces? Blonde, redhead?’ asked Jo. ‘Clothes?’

Professor Kendrick returned her glasses to her face and checked her watch. ‘I expect she wore clothes, didn’t she, Sally?’

Sally’s cheeks grew pink and she threw a grateful glance at the professor. ‘I didn’t take much notice, I was late for my meeting. She had dark hair, I think. About this long.’ She pointed to her shoulders.

‘Young, female and dark, long hair? Anything else?’

‘I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this kind of thing.’

‘Anything at all.’

‘Eyeliner,’ said Sally with a note of triumph in her voice. ‘I remember thinking she wore too much eyeliner.’

Great. That should narrow it down to well over eighty per cent of the student population, even if you included the boys.

‘Well,’ said Jo. ‘Here’s our card. If you remember anything, give us a ring, let us know. There’s a … an office manager if we’re not available. You can leave a message with her.’

Chapter Three

We trudged back up the hill towards the office. We hadn’t found out a right lot, and it was hard not to feel a bit deflated. We decided we’d wait till teatime to go round to Matt’s house on The Turnways again, see if anyone turned up. Before that we were meeting Martin Blink.

Martin arrived at the offices on the stroke of half past four. He limped through the front door, and Jo jumped up from her desk and hugged the life out of him. They’d spent a lot of time together, after our last case, when Jo was in hospital recovering from her surgery on her shoulder, and I was trying to handle the chaos of the aftermath of what had happened. I think now he sees her as his protégée.

I hung back, tried to position myself so that Aunt Edie wouldn’t see Jo’s eyes tight shut in the embrace. ‘Good to see you,’ I said. ‘How you doing?’

He didn’t answer me, staring instead at Jo, running his eyes up and down her frame like he was looking for weak spots.

I tried to see Jo through Martin’s eyes. I know I take her for granted. She’s the stronger one, I mean, mentally – the least neurotic person I ever met. To Jo everything is black or white. There’s the wrong way and the right way. Good versus evil. If there’s ever anything on her mind, she’ll go out, get hammered and forget about it. She doesn’t have brain worms – the things that wriggle around in your headspace, won’t let you go.

I had noticed that since the last investigation she was smoking and drinking a bit more than she used to, and I was keeping an eye on it. But who wouldn’t be, in her position, after what had happened? She’d been shot and the physical scars were still healing. The mental scars might take even longer. She’d get there though. I’d make damned sure of that.

Jo seemed to pass Martin’s inspection, because he took a step back, nodded and said, ‘Doing all right, kid.’

And I felt my shoulders give a little.

‘I’m hanging in there,’ said Jo.

She pushed a chair towards Martin and as soon as he sat down he didn’t look old. His face tells a lot of stories – frown lines buried deep in his forehead, but laughter lines like spiders’ webs criss-crossing from the corner of his eyes and disappearing into his hairline. When he’s not trying to walk you’d think he was in his fifties.

‘Doing just fine,’ said Aunt Edie.

‘Any ghosts?’ said Martin, setting a battered leather briefcase on the desk.

Jo glanced at me and a wash of something that felt like acid burned my veins. I know she hates talking about the fact she killed a man. Even a man as bad as the one she killed. I tell her she did the world a favour, but I know she doesn’t believe me. Not yet.

‘I’m coping,’ said Jo.

‘It’s ace to see you, Martin.’ As I said the words I felt my breathing deepen, so that air made it past my chest and into the rest of my body. ‘What brings you here?’

‘Private matters.’ He tapped one finger against the side of his nose and then glanced across at Aunt Edie. ‘If your receptionist here could make us a cup of tea, I’ve a thirst like the Sahara. You got a room we could talk in?’

I think I actually ducked. When I did dare risk a glance in Aunt Edie’s direction, she was holding on to the back of her office chair, her knuckles white under the fluorescent lights.

‘I’m the office manager, not the receptionist,’ she said in the tightest of voices.

‘Sorry, love.’ Martin held up his hands. ‘Didn’t mean to cause offence.’

Aunt Edie bridled but managed to bite her tongue. She pushed her chair under the desk. ‘I’ll happily put the kettle on,’ she said. ‘And I was going to leave a bit early tonight, so no need to go through to the back. You can have the place to yourselves. Talk about your privates to your heart’s content.’ She stared unblinking at Martin as she spoke.

I felt my cheeks burn.

Once Aunt Edie had switched the kettle on and her computer off, she buttoned up her coat and let herself out.

Martin loosened his tie.

‘Got off on the wrong foot there.’

‘Don’t worry. Her bark’s worse than her bite,’ I lied. ‘So, come on, spill.’

‘I want to hire you girls.’

‘Hire us?’

‘Women,’ said Jo.

‘I want to hire you women?’ asked Martin. ‘Really?’

Jo nodded and put her feet up on the desk.

‘OK,’ said Martin, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I want to hire you women.’

If I’ve got a weak spot, it’s lonely old men. You see them, shuffling round Morrisons, mismatched clothes, in need of a haircut. I can’t bear to think of them fumbling with the tin opener and being unable to reach out to people. Jo gives me hell for my sexism and it’s true – I don’t worry about women in the same way. I guess I think women have an advantage.

I knew Martin was divorced, that he lived on his own, but I didn’t like to think of him living with the ghosts of the disappeared.

‘You’re missing someone?’ I wondered who it might be. He’d never mentioned much about his private life.

‘Been thinking, since you solved that last case. You found the answer to something that happened seventeen years ago. You went back and found something we all missed.’

‘Couldn’t have done it without you,’ I said. ‘And the—’

‘Enough, already. Don’t need to be damned with your faint praise, thanks all the same. Never doubted my investigative skills.’ He fiddled with the clasp on his briefcase and pulled out a newspaper. ‘But sometimes you got to wait till the window opens.’

‘Go on,’ said Jo, taking the paper from him.

‘Page thirteen.’ He pulled at his tie and loosened the knot. ‘Another one I never got to the bottom of. And this one nags me, buzzes round my head like an angry wasp. You know, when the 3 a.m. gets you?’ He looked to Jo and I found myself feeling resentful. I’m more than familiar with the early hours, thank you very much.

Jo read while Martin continued, ‘One that won’t let me lie. And I thought well, if you could have a go at it, maybe the time is right.’

‘The body?’ said Jo.

‘Let me see.’ I peered over Jo’s shoulder, saw a small article, only a few lines with the headline: ‘Police discover woman’s body in garden of luxury flats.’

‘It’s worth a crack, that’s what I’m saying.’

We heard the kettle whistle in the kitchenette out back. Martin Blink looked up at the clock. ‘Sun’s almost over the yard arm. You gi— women got a local?’

Martin doesn’t know about my issues with alcohol. Not that I’ve had a drink since the last case. And I try not to beat myself up too much about that one. Surely anyone in that situation, faced with the immediate prospect of their own death, would succumb to one last shot? Especially when it was one of the finest whiskies money could buy. So fine that when I close my eyes, I can still taste it.

But before that one slip, in extreme circumstances, it had been nearly a full twelve months since I’d given up drinking.

I know now that that’s the difference between the addict and the social drinker. To the addict, it doesn’t matter how long it’s been since the last one, because they’re focused on the next. The social drinker can enjoy a drink, the one they have in their hands – as a self-contained event, an occasion all in itself. Which is a nice idea, but a single drink doesn’t exist for the addict. The addict is thinking about the future, about what will happen when the one in their hands runs out. To the addict one drink is only ever the start.

Addicts are people who have never experienced enough. Enough of what, I don’t know. Therapists would tell you they haven’t had enough love. I don’t know about that. I just know there’s never enough alcohol to get me out of my mind.

‘Well?’ asked Martin.

I nearly said no, but I caught the look on Jo’s face. And, I reminded myself, it’s good for me to be challenged. An opportunity to reassert my faith, my resolve. Least, that’s what the textbooks tell me.

I switched the phones over to the night-service and unhooked my jacket from its peg. ‘There’s The Brudenell,’ I said as Jo’s eyes lit up. ‘Just round the corner.’

Chapter Four

The Brudenell is a social club but it’s not like your average working men’s club. For a start, nearly everyone in it is a student and probably not one of them has ever done a full day’s work in their lives – at least, not the kind of work that working men’s club implies. Recently, The Brudenell has been building a solid reputation as a kind of secret gig venue, with unadvertised performances by some big-name bands.

We were seated in the bar less than ten minutes after leaving the office, Martin and Jo both with pints – Landlord for Martin, lager and lime for Jo. I nursed a blackcurrant and soda. I can’t drink cola because the caffeine makes my heart race, and I’m never sure what else to order. ‘Let’s hear it then.’

He glanced around but it was still early, even by student standards. The closest drinkers were seated three tables away. ‘Trouble was no one was pushing for it to be solved. A body – young girl – young woman, a prostitute—’

‘Sex worker,’ said Jo.

Martin nodded and took a swig of his pint. The head of his beer left a foam moustache along his top lip. It suited him, matched the white of his hair. ‘Sex worker. Like it. Anyway, that was as far as they got. A body. A sex worker, they decided. No one ever came forward to claim her.’

‘Murdered?’

Martin popped a Fisherman’s Friend in his mouth and crunched. ‘She was dead. That’s about the only fact. Police decided it was suicide although they never found a note. Pathologist said somewhere between twenty-two and twenty-five. Autopsy showed she’d carried a child. Slip of a thing. Bruises that looked like she’d had some kind of fight, but they were old – not related to her death.’